Affable all-star

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This article was published 21/01/2017 (3431 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hockey fans love a Cinderella story, and John Scott’s is a doozy.

In the lead-up to the 2016 NHL All-Star Game, Scott went from relative obscurity to the biggest story in hockey. When the league set up a fan-based voting system for selecting players for the All-Star Game, the fans got behind Scott in a big way. An enforcer who’d laced up and dropped the gloves for the Minnesota Wild, Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, San Jose Sharks and Arizona Coyotes, Scott didn’t generally fit the mould of an “all-star,” and the league tried to put him in his place and keep him out of the game. The drama that unfolded was one for the books (and, he hints, the made-for-TV-movies too).

With an assist from veteran Sports Illustrated writer Brian Cazeneuve, Scott, who retired from professional hockey in December 2016, lays out his story across A Guy Like Me’s 200-plus conversational pages. Like many workhorse players over the years, Scott came from humble beginnings, and worked his way up through the minor hockey system to eventually earn, to his surprise, a hockey scholarship to Michigan Tech, where he pursued a degree in mechanical engineering.

From there, Scott describes his rise through the minors to the NHL and eventually his winning of the All-Star Game’s most valuable player award — despite being traded two weeks before the game from the Coyotes to the Montreal Canadiens, who then demoted him to the American Hockey League — as a series of opportunities that he still has trouble believing weren’t part of a wild dream.

“It was a sweet life for a simple Canadian kid who wouldn’t trade his place with anyone,” Scott writes. “There was nobody on the planet who enjoyed those moments more than I did or who was more grateful for them than I was. I felt like I had hit the jackpot.”

Without any Stanley Cup rings, international silverware to boast of or undue hardship to overcome, Scott’s story still entertains, while providing some insight into the life of an enforcer, a role that is increasingly being squeezed out of today’s game. His recollections of life riding the bus while cramming for exams as a student athlete are also enlightening. However, this might not be enough to hook everyone, though for those with a deep interest in hockey history or a soft spot for the underdog, A Guy Like Me is well worth the price of admission, particularly when it comes to the details around last year’s All-Star drama.

Be that as it may, for those who read up on the story as it was unfolding last season, there isn’t much more presented here than what was reported in some of the better pieces and profiles written last season (which includes Scott’s own article in the Player’s Tribune). Scott acknowledges the league might have jerked him around a bit; that they made his life very stressful at a sensitive time for him and his growing family is an understatement. But Scott claims he doesn’t hold a grudge, and he doesn’t call out by name those whose actions had crossed the line.

While somewhat disappointing for those keen for a look at the game’s dirty laundry, it isn’t surprising Scott takes the high road here. He admits he still sees a future for himself in the world of professional hockey — whether in broadcasting, management or some other capacity — and rocking the boat any more than he already has would certainly not help him achieve that goal.

Unlikely as it is to rest alongside greats in the hockey-memoir canon — Ken Dryden’s The Game, or Theo Fleury’s Playing With Fire, to name two — John Scott’s A Guy Like Me is a breath of fresh air for hockey fans who appreciate the pure love of the game over the corporate crap.

Sheldon Birnie is a reporter with Canstar Community News.